I recently heard a guru say that ”90 % of all business is marketing.”. I'm inclined to agree, and I'll explain why.
No matter how fantastic the raw materials you find in the ground are, or how skilled you are at turning them into some product, it doesn't matter if you can't position and market them the right way. The market has to understand what your product is, what it does and where to find it.
Direct selling or network marketing
Our industry is officially called direct selling by the authorities, because we reach the customer directly without middlemen. Internally we often call it network marketing, because we work with marketing products and services within our network of contacts.
The term ”multi-level marketing” basically just describes an organisational structure where we get paid for marketing through several tiers, more levels.
Common misconceptions
I still hear people say things like:
– ”It's all about being first!”
– ”Only the people at the top earn the most!”
– ”Pyramid scheme!”
In reality, that isn't how it works. Every business has a hierarchical structure, in other words a ”pyramid.” The difference in our profession is that anyone, at any time, can build their own business. The structure is more like a spider's web than a pyramid, because success is built on productivity and not on who got there first.
In practice it's always the most productive person who earns the most, the one who has the most meetings and builds the biggest network. Those who have worked a few years longer than you have surely had more meetings. It's just like buying a property and selling it 10 years later for more money than you paid for it. You positioned yourself in the market earlier. When you buy a share, you can potentially sell that share in the future for more than you paid for it. Even though I buy to own, not to sell.
Summary
The authorities call it direct selling, while we see it as network marketing. We work with marketing products within our network of contacts. Every business needs sales, otherwise the company doesn't survive, but what we do is 90 % marketing.
Marketing means letting people know about your product or service and how it can help them. And if you then want to build a successful organisation, it's about finding more people who want to spread the message together with you.
Every business has sales!
– I'm a massage therapist, I just want to help people! Yes, with the product massage.
– I'm a coach and I just want to help people. Yes, with the product coaching.
– I'm a plumber, I just want to help people… Yes, you have a product or a service that you sell if you're a business owner, otherwise you're out of business.
Randy Gage, one of the absolute biggest names in our profession, says: ”I'm a lousy salesman but a brilliant marketer!”.
As a distributor for a network marketing company, you're ”just” a partner. You have a partnership with a big parent company that takes care of everything except marketing. As a partner to a network marketing company, your role is to focus on marketing out in the field. The parent company handles production, distribution and administration, everything but the marketing. Then direct selling happens when customers want to buy something they've been given information about.
